The art of useless purchasing reports

The art of useless purchasing reports

How do you recognize a useless shopping report?

So, that:

• "does not summarize completely, faithfully, clearly, and without delay the performance of key purchasing tasks." (key in terms of strategy, management and internal customers),* "adresát s informacemi obsaženými v reportu nic konkrétního nedělá." (nevyjede vám alespoň pět konkrétních akcí, které v minutách, maximálně hodinách po obdržení reportu podnikl).

On an operational level, I'm a big fan of situational buying reports that summarize the most important things at a glance and the user of the report instantly knows what is important, what the expected performance is, where specifically the problem is and what needs to be done. Such a report should be automated and shown to the buyer whenever it is ordered into the system.

A good procurement manager spends days figuring it out and continually refines it to give his team guidance while seeing where the problem is and can proactively intervene

At the purchasing department level, the key to success is a report focused on processes: how effective they are, how they are implemented, whether they lead to the expected performance. Process reports are usually a mixture of hard and soft data, and their preparation and subsequent interpretation cannot be completely automated.

A good procurement manager will dedicate 10% to the results and 90% to the process by which they were achieved, because a procurement manager is not there to do the job of a buyer, but to enable their team to do their job as efficiently as possible while having control that they are achieving results through the right process.

The redundant reports frustrated me enough to pursue an MSc. in Corporate Performance Management. After ten years of examining purchasing reports, I find that most purchasing reports are so bad that it is best to throw them away and start over, for a minority you just need to cross out and add to them, and for a few you just need to work on the content and format for different types of users.

I believe that improved purchasing reporting will bring rapid and tangible improvements in purchasing performance and a clear action plan for buyers, purchasing managers, internal audit and senior management.